Thousands march in pro-Gaddafi rally in Tripoli

Saturday, June 18, 2011 - 01:40

June 17 - A few thousand Gaddafi loyalists gathered in Tripoli's Green Square on Friday waving national green flags and portraits of Gaddafi - the largest pro-Gaddafi rally in weeks. Jon Decker reports.

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The war in Libya continues. The French military released on Friday video of recent air strikes by French attack helicopters in a mission over Libya.
Some of the footage shows an armoured vehicle stationed on a radar field being hit by a missile.
Another sequence shows several strikes on what the French military says are military buildings.
Meanwhile, Libyan rebels and forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi exchanged heavy artillery fire near the western city of Zlitan on Friday as the rebels tried to push forward towards Tripoli.
In Dafniyah, on the outskirts of the Libyan rebels' western bastion of Misrata, rebels fired artillery and rocket launchers. If the rebels were to gain control of Zlitan it would represent a major victory for them in western Libya.
Back in Tripoli, a few thousand Gaddafi loyalists gathered in Green Square waving national green flags and portraits of Gaddafi.
The show of support is the largest in the capital for weeks and comes on a day that many were expecting anti-Gaddafi demonstrations to erupt in eastern parts of the city.
Opposition activists told Reuters that a heavy security presence in known dissident areas helped discourage Gaddafi's opponents from taking to the streets.
NATO intervention in Libya has been going on for nearly 13 weeks.
Jon Decker, Reuters.